ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with Palmyra's cityscape, its temples, the necropolises, its world of images, of commodities and inscriptions. The traveller approaches the city from the west, on the road from Emesa to Palmyra. Shortly before reaching the oasis, he turns left, climbing the hill where now the citadel of Qal 'at Ibn Ma 'n, erected by the Mamluks, towers. The archaeological data convincingly support the interpretation of the tax tariff, according to which the exchange of goods between Palmyra and its surrounding area was of a considerable volume, and that foodstuffs played an important role in it. The model of the occidentalists will be reviewed, according to which Palmyra was also institutionally a "cite grecque," having an equivalent range of bodies and laws shaping the political field in the same way as they did in any Greek city of the Hellen.
